Lessons Learned

Digging through my CDs brought back a lot of fond memories. One common thought running through my mind is where and how I obtained specific records. We hear a lot of music for the first time online these days…. we hear a stream, purchase it online, or download a leak. Either way, we’re losing physical attachments we’ve had to records, which is an important part of music discovery.

Green Day - Dookie: My brother and I pooled our money together and bought this album on cassette from a Phar-Mor. I still have the cassette.

Bad Religion - The Gray Race: My girlfriend at the time wanted to hook one of my friends up with her good friend, so the four of us hung out at this girl’s house. This CD was sitting on a speaker without a case. I asked the girl about it and she said something along the lines of “I don’t even like that CD. You can have it if you want it.” Free music and I didn’t even have to download it!

Blink 182 - Dude Ranch: I traded my brother a copy of Korn’s Follow the Leader for this and Sublime’s self-titled record. Ouch, sorry dude!

Voodoo Glow Skulls - Firme: I recently wrote about the Punk-O-Rama Volume 2.1. After I fell in love with that compilation I was dying to hear more. I cut my grandfather’s grass and begged for an advance on my allowance so that I could go to National Record Mart to pick this album up.

Silverchair - Freak Show: I don’t recall exactly when I bought this album, but I remember being extremely frustrated with my computer because it couldn’t handle the Enhanced CD stuff on the disc that well. Remember that filth?

The Explosion - The Explosion: I bought this at the Exchange solely because it was released on Jade Tree. I had no idea who they were or what they sounded like, but if it was on Jade Tree it was probably pretty good. I miss taking those risks.

NOFX - Liberal Animation: I liked a few NOFX songs that I heard on compilations so I went to the store to pick up one of their albums. I was a little overwhelmed by how many records that they had at the time. I don’t know exactly why I chose this one, but I was pretty bummed out after I listened to it, as I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t listen to NOFX for a while after that. It wasn’t until my mom gave me White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean one Christmas that I truly became a NOFX fan.

Onelinedrawing - Visitor: I saw Onelinedrawing open for Thursday once at Club Laga. I had no idea who Jonah Matranga was and at this point I had never heard of Far. I just loved the simplicity and energy from Onelinedrawing’s set so I bought this CD off of Jonah at his merch table seconds after his performance.

The Offspring - Conspiracy of One: I used to go to The Exchange once or twice a week and just look for used CDs. One day as I was browsing I saw this album and I got really excited because it wasn’t even out yet! When I opened it up I noticed a little promo card to win free tickets and backstage passes to the Conspiracy of One tour. I won that contest and I like to think it was because I was the first one in Pittsburgh to enter it! MxPx and Cypress Hill were also on the bill, it was kind of weird ‘hanging’ out with them backstage at the Civic Arena.

The Rapture - Echoes: I don’t know when I first started reading Pitchfork, but it was around the time this record came out. I bought it specifically because they gave it such a high score. This album really paved the way for me to get into electronic music and more importantly LCD Soundsystem.

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command: No scene points on this one. I purchased this album at Best Buy for $7.99. They had it on a kiosk and once I heard “One Armed Scissor” I knew that this record was for me.

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire: I went to the mall with my mom one day and bought this album. I didn’t show it to her until I got home so that I could swap cases with another CD because this one had a parental advisory sticker on it.

Primus - Brown Album: On Sunday night’s the local ‘alternative’ radio station used to play newer and slightly different music than they would during the day. One evening I heard the song “Shake Hands with Beef.” I missed the announcement on who the band was though. For the next few days I called the radio station trying to find out who and to get them to play the song again. They ended up playing a different track for me the following week, “Over the Falls” — I bought the album immediately.